valentine's day

last night, bryan took me to dinner at mitchell's fish market for our valentine's day dinner. i was pleasantly surprised - it was much better than i had anticipated. the atmosphere and decor were great - definitely my kind of place. they have their fish flown in whole every morning, and they have a guy who does all the butchering on site.

we started with the new orleans voodoo bbq shrimp, which were wrapped in bacon, drenched in a sweet and spicy bbq sauce, and served with sticky rice. the shrimp were pretty fat, and very sweet. it was a relatively simple preparation, and totally delicious (totally stealing this idea). bryan had some raw oysters, which i was not brave enough to try. bryan moved on to the new orleans seafood gumbo, which, while he wasn't sure if there was okra in it, had more than it's fair share of fish, which he was happy about. i had the spinach salad with green apples, red onion, spiced pecans, and maple-bacon vinaigrette. the salad was very good; i have a hard time resisting spinach salads with bacon dressing. bryan chose the day's catch of yellowfin tuna, simply grilled. while the presentation left something to be desired (it was a rather uncolored and uninspiring block of fish), it was a good size and bryan enjoyed it. i had the cedar plank salmon, which is served on the plank with roasted vegetables, portabella relish, and a balsamic glaze. it was really very good. i was impressed that they seemed to do the planking correctly, and the fish had a good smokey, woody flavor. we skipped dessert, as it was all dairy (and delicious sounding). very, very enjoyable. it's sort of the oceanaire for the every day. nothing wrong with that though - it was great!

we noticed on the way out that the bar has a separate menu (fish tacos, veggie fries, etc), so i look forward to going back to have a drink (they fresh squeeze all their juices, so that's exciting) and a snack sometime.

mom and dad watched ollie while we were out, and he was the perfect little angel, of course. dad took some pictures - what a cutie!

valentine's day continues tomorrow, as all the candy will be 50% off. ;)